Nowadays, we find there are so many devotees getting paid to perform bhajana/kirtan like professional singers, I guess that is nice for them, but real Kirtan is explained by Srila Prabhupada in this 1967 letter to Jadurani dd.
Krishna Kirtan is not for earning livelihood. Krishna Kirtana is not meant for entertaining the public for demonstration of arts. It is dynamic service to the Lord. We do not therefore mind so much about the artistic presentation of Krishna Kirtan but we want to see how much a devotee is satisfying the Supreme Will. (Prabhupada letter to Jadurani 12th December, 1967)
For some reason this morning, I had a look back at some of the early Back to Godhead Magazine issues. This Movement had such humble beginnings as is evident from this second edition of Back to Godhead Magazine.It was published with the use of a type writer (remember those), and a mimeograph machine.
But in spite of all the changes in technology, the mission has remained the same; a mission devoted to promulgating bhakti yoga, the science of God as expounded by Lord Sri Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita.
Tamala Krsna: These two pujaris, the two brothers…
Prabhupada: They’re ideal.
Tamala Krsna: …they look like they’re out of the Caitanya-caritamrta. They appear as two persons right out of that book.
Prabhupada: Yes. Very good boys.
Tamala Krsna: Vaikuntha men.
Prabhupada: Oh, yes. They do not know except the Deity. Very good boys.
Tamala Krsna: Perfect team of brothers.
Prabhupada: Oh, yes. Therefore Krsna has brought them here in Mayapur. Previously they were advanced. All of you. You are simply born because the mission was to be started. Just like in Yadu-vamsa Krsna ordered all the devotee demigods to “Go and take birth there to help Me.” Similarly, you are also… You were born in Europe, America, to help this. Otherwise you were devotees in your past lives.
ISKCON (the International Society for Krishna Consciousness) was incorporated in New York City, in the State of New York in the US, on 13 July 1966, around 53 years ago. This first incorporation of ISKCON was executed at Srila Prabhupada’s behest – then known to his followers only as ‘Swamiji’ and to others as A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami.
The lawyer under whose aegis the fledgling movement was officially instituted was Mr Steven Goldsmith, an attendee at Srila Prabhupada’s Second Avenue lectures. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect Mr Goldsmith’s legal fees were low or non-existent.
One early (for me) morning in July of 1966, I was awakened and asked to sign papers pertaining to the incorporation of ISKCON. As a US citizen and resident, my signature appeared to be necessary. So I rather perfunctorily signed the document, thinking at the time it was a sort of ‘flight of fancy’ of Srila Prabhupada’s. Later I was instrumental in getting ISKCON incorporated in the State of California (US), as well as in England and India.
The constitution of these other three corporations was based on that of the original New York Corporation. I’ve drawn the conclusion that Srila Prabhupada’s vision in doing this was for ISKCON to endure in the face of his own and his followers’ inevitable physical disappearances. ‘Built to last’ was a slogan that wasn’t lost on Srila Prabhupada’s institution. In pursuance of Srila Prabhupada’s vision, as far as I know the highest administrative levels of ISKCON have been discussing and examining the ‘culture of succession’ principle.
“So don’t be worried, do your best and success or failure does not matter. Krishna is absolute, so there is no such thing as success or failure in Krishna Consciousness, or in other words, there is no question of failure in Krishna Consciousness, whatever we do it is success. Whatever one may do in the material world, if he is even Rockefeller, it is all failure, defeat, because it will not exist beyond this body. He does not know that next life I may be dog or cat. But whatever service we can do for Krishna, even if somebody is not able to execute fully Krishna Consciousness, whatever amount of service he does it never goes in vain. It will eternally remain. And it will act. Even somebody does small amount of service, and not even very willingly, still, he is assured to get human body in next birth, and chance to execute some service further. So there is no question of failure in Krishna Consciousness. It is only success. Krishna says, My devotee is never vanquished. So we must try sincerely, that’s all.” (Srila Prabhupada Letter, November 15, 1968)
“…Prabhupada had an uncanny way of knowing how to engage different disciples in various services according to their natures”
Good Management
by Gargamuni Prabhu
The first acting officers of ISKCON were appointed by Prabhupada in the Fall 1966. We were sitting in Prabhupada’s room, only five or six of us, when He asked, “So Who should be president?” Everyone looked at each other and then Brahmananda suggested, “I think that Kirtanananda should be the president because he was the first to join.” There were other suggestions but Prabhupada didn’t approve, and then said, “No. I think that Brahmananda should be the president.” Why? Because he was actually maintaining the temple by giving his entire paycheck; $400 a month, as a NYC public substitute school-teacher. We both stayed in the temple-storefront. All the other working devotees had apartments and so they couldn’t give much money or time. So Brahmananda became the first president of ISKCON and Satsvarupa was appointed as secretary. I became the first treasurer/accountant. Prabhupada had an uncanny way of knowing how to engage different disciples in various services according to their natures. I was sure that he chose Brahmananda because he was a natural leader. He had been the president of his senior-high school class, and was captain of the football team and was captain of the wrestling team, for which he received a scholarship to the USA Naval Academy at Annapolis. He had a natural tendency to lead. He had his own club called The Playmakers, for which he was president, and they had their own jackets which they wore to school. He was a born leader and Prabhupada knew that just by looking at him. He made Satsvarupa the secretary because he was an intellectual—an excellent writer and editor. He made me the treasurer because I was by nature interested in business. When I was seven I started my own business selling cherry bombs (a very powerful kind of firecracker) at school. The kids would buy them and blow up mailboxes. The police were called and they found out it was me, but because I was only seven, they didn’t do anything. Even as a child I made my own office out of card-board and played with my father’s old business letters. I never told Prabhupada about my business activities, but he knew my nature just by looking into my eyes. It is a common understanding that the eyes are the ‘mirror of the mind’. I didn’t know anything about accounting but Prabhupada taught me. He explained accounting the following way:
I have posted this article as well as other articles written by Locananda Prabhu before, but because of the significance and quality of the writing, we have decided to post it again.
Arsha Prayoga – Part One
by Locanananda Dasa
…For those who saw the Hare Krishna movement spread from city to city and from country to country, it was clear that the original version of Srila Prabhupada’s books was full of spiritual potency and did not require to be changed in any way for his words to act upon the hearts of the conditioned souls…
The question as to whether the writings of the acarya may or may not be revised by his disciples after his disappearance is answered by the rule of “arsa prayoga”. This principle states that one should not see mistakes in what the spiritual master has written or think that his writings may be changed to make them more effective or politically correct. To preserve his teachings in their originally published form is the way by which the acarya is honored, and to do otherwise is to dishonor him. That is the rule of “arsa prayoga”, a principle that devoted followers of a bona fide spiritual master must adhere to without deviation.
My wife shared this with me, a post she saw on Facebook. I thought it was rather funny.
The master may be a great millionaire, but still, he loves the dog so much that on the morning walk he takes his dog and the dog is passing urine… What, what business dog has got? To pass urine and stool and go this way and that way. But the master is attending. Similarly, God, or Kṛṣṇa, is so affectionate that we have come here in this material world simply to pass stool and urine, still He’s attending. Still, He’s attending. Just imagine what merciful is Kṛṣṇa. (Prabhupada lecture SB1.8.19 Māyāpura, September 29th 1974)
Srila Prabhupada knowing Visnujana Swami’s talents asked him to make a melody for this song. The very next day Visnujana had this amazing melody with a very sweet spoken purport. It is a heart melting song that shows Visnujana Swami’s amazing love and devotion that inspired and still inspires so many. -Gauridas Pandita das
A friend of mine recently sent me a couple of links to check out. The first is Purely Prabhupada.com ,which has the pre-1978 editions of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda’s books, there are videos, testimonials, and more. This site connects with its sister sitePurely Prabhupada.org which is a treasure-house of podcasts, articles, narrations, kirtans, and instructional series for practical application of spiritual life.
I have spent a number of hours now reviewing both sites and there seems to be a wealth of information and links here.
This is an interesting story/history, of the beginning of the Spiritual Sky Incense business started, as told by H.G. Gargamuni das.
How I started Spiritual Sky Incense
by Gargamuni das
This is the Story of How I started Spiritual Sky Incense in the winter of 1968 at 61 2nd Ave Iskcon NYC– with the motto, ”Krsna Makes the Best Scents” (Sense), which increased Sankirtan Literature Distribution 20 times. Myself and Brahmananda thought of the name Spiritual Sky, with Srila Prabhupada’s blessings in the winter of 1968. I started making the Spiritual Sky incense in the very small cellar at the temple. I not only made stick incense but I also packaged resin incense, which I bought from an old East European man who was 90 years old. He used to make frankincense that was used in churches. He had several other mixes with spices and resins which were very fragrant. You would put these on self-igniting charcoal. There were little round charcoals, you would light a match and touch it, and it would self-ignite. Then you would sprinkle on these resins with spices and you’d get very nice fragrance. I made different names with small containers, and sold them to the stores. I also bottled fragances in designer dripless perfume bottles. In this way, I was practically the only one making extra money for the temple.
In India in the early 1970’s, when the devotees held Pandal Programs, Srila Prabhupada referred to them as ”Dancing White Elephants”. Brahmananda Prabhu describes the story…….
Brahmananda: I’m thinking what Srila Prabhupada, when we came here, [India] what he called us. You may know. What did Prabhupada call us? Dancing White Elephants. Now, I did some research about white elephants, what that means, and I found out the term comes actually from Thailand where they have many elephants there and every once in a while there is an albino is born, a white elephant. So when a white elephant is born, it’s considered very special and the white elephant is treated very special, not like the other elephants. He’s pampered, he’s kept very nicely. The thing is, of course, elephants are used to work. In the logging industry, the elephants pull the logs and push them and they work very hard. But the white elephant, they don’t work, they don’t put him to work. They just keep him. So the thing is that it’s very expensive to maintain the white elephant. He has to be given special treatment and all kinds of facilities and so on, whereas the other elephants don’t have this. The other elephants, all they do is work. But the thing is, the white elephant doesn’t produce anything. The white elephant is actually useless, he cannot work, he’s just maintained. So what they do with the white elephant, they teach him some tricks, to perform something, they make some show and they’re entertained. They find it very entertaining to see the white elephant dancing. The black elephant, nobody cares to see the black elephant dance; but the white elephant, oh, that’s very good. But the problem is that the white elephant can’t do anything else. So it’s a very apt description, I think, when we came to India. We could not do anything. Sometimes we thought we were maybe doing something, then Prabhupada had to remind us actually he was doing everything. Actually Prabhupada had to manage everything, every last detail, to how to distribute prasadam, how to teach us to eat the proper way and wash and so many things. So Prabhupada had to micro-manage everything. And why? Just so the white elephants could attract the brown elephants to dance. But this was Prabhupada’s mission. When Prabhupada came to India in 1970, then He made India his headquarters, he stayed in India. From India, then he would go out and visit the West for preaching. But he stayed from 1970 all the way through 1977 in India as His base. So the mission was to have the Indian people become devotees…..And Now that Prediction has become True with Hundreds of Thousands of Indians becoming Devotees of Lord Krsna……….
(from ‘Broadcasting Krsna’s Glories’ by Satsvarupa dasa Gosvami)
“At the studio, everyone accepted the devotees as a regular music group. One of the rock musicians asked them what the name of their group was, and Hayagriva laughed and replied, “The Hare Krsna Chanters.” Of course most of the devotees weren’t actually musicians, and yet the instruments they brought with them — a tamboura, a large harmonium (loaned by Allen Ginsberg), and rhythm instruments — were ones they had played during kirtanas for months.
So as they entered the studio they felt confident that they could produce their own sound. They just followed their Swami. He knew how to play, and they knew how to follow him. They weren’t just another music group. It was music, but it was also chanting, meditation, worship.
I had to laugh the other day when this popped up on my computer screen. “Scientist confirm the Universe has no direction”There are material scientist’s who believe that the universe was created by chance, by an explosion (“Big Bang”), by accident.
But Srila Prabhupada explains it very differently…
Prabhupäda: No, no, no. We don’t accept that. If there would have been accident, so many planets are rotating in, and so forth… There is no collision. There is no accident. Because God is so perfect, although all the planets are rotating in their speed, just like this earth is rotating… At least in twenty-four hours it is completing 25,000 miles. That means its speed is about 1000 miles at least. And similarly, other planets are also moving. And the sun planet is moving at 16,000 miles per minute or second, calculated. But all these planets are moving in this way, so much speed, but they are not colliding. The perfect arrangement is there, and they are floating. How it is possible? This is accidental? Do you think this is accidental? Nature is not working that way. Nature is working very perfectly. We can see. So perfect that the astronomers, they are calculating that on such and such date there will be an eclipse, and it will be seen in India; it will not be seen in Europe; and exactly at this time the eclipse will begin. So how they are calculating unless there is a rigid law? How it is possible? They are calculating mathematically. So the nature’s law is working in that way. Otherwise how one year before you can calculate this solar eclipse and lunar eclipse so rightly? And they can say that from this country it will be seen, and from this country it will be not seen. That means the position of the sun, moon and everything, of the latitude and longitude, everything is so nicely done that you can make calculations very perfectly. How you can say accident? There is no accident.
My wife shared this with me, something she saw on Facebook. Time Tested “Big” Prasadam Recipies. Love Kurma’s cookbooks and recipes. Hare Krishna and happy New Year!
New Kurma Cookbook!
I’ve finally opened my treasure trove of time-tested ‘big’ prasadam recipes from five decades of quantity cooking. Interwoven with hundreds of fascinating stories, realizations and memories from early disciples, FEAST includes Srila Prabhupada’s original recipes, ISKCON Sunday feast kitchen classics, and modern favourites.
This large and beautifully presented 492-page book, designed and published by Srimati Mayapriya devi dasi from Bookwrights Press, is a generous collection of 375 meticulous, large-sized vegetarian and plant-based recipes from myself and veteran chefs Gopati dasa and Apurva dasa, as well as 60 other Hare Krishna kitchen giants.
Feast is a legacy of love, offered by ISKCON’s first generation of cooks for future chefs, and for the upliftment of human society at large. Srila Prabhupada writes “Simply by liberal distribution of prasada and sankirtana, the whole world can become peaceful and prosperous.” (SB 4.12.10)
“The spiritual master is receiving benediction from the ocean of mercy. Just as a cloud pours water on a forest fire to extinguish it, so the spiritual master delivers the materially afflicted world by extinguishing the blazing fire of material existence. I offer my respectful obeisances unto the lotus feet of such a spiritual master.”
The Vedic teachers compare the material world in which we live to a forest fire. Although no one wants a forest fire, sometimes a fire spontaneously takes place in the forest, inflicting suffering on the helpless creatures who live there. But if, by the grace of God, storm clouds gather and shower their water, drenching the forest with rain, the forest and its creatures are saved. Similarly, when a bonafide spiritual master, by the grace of Krsna, showers upon human society the benediction of Krsna consciousness, that benediction can save us from the eternal problems of material ignorance and suffering and give us the chance to return to our real life of eternal bliss and knowledge in the service of Krsna. We should therefore glorify and offer our respectful homage unto the lotus feet of such a bona fide spiritual master.
Lecture on Maha-mantra New York, September 8, 1966
By His Divine Grace A.C.Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
Prabhupada: Now, some of you members have asked me to explain the meaning of this chanting, Hare Krishna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare. Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. Now, this sound is transcendental sound, transcendental sound, incarnation, sound incarnation of the Absolute Truth…
So this sound, this Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare. Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare, is the sound representation of the Supreme Lord. The sarvam khalv idam brahma. The whole thing, either material or spiritual, whatever we have got experience, nothing is separated from the Supreme Absolute Truth. Nothing is separated. Everything has emanated from the Absolute Truth.
“I am always a bit dubious about organizations and since the Swami left the planet it does seem to be chaotic, with all kinds of guys thinking they’re the gurus. To me, it’s not important to be a guru, it’s more important just to be, to learn humility.”
(George Harrison interview with BP Fallon, The Sunday Tribune, October 18th, 1987)
Just before Srila Prabhupada left this world in 1977, he removed the ring on his right hand and said to the disciples around him, ‘This is for George, give it to him.’
Naga Sadhus or holy man of Niranjani Akhara take a holy dip in Ganges River on the occasion of first royal bath of Shivratri festival during Maha Kumbh Festival , in Haridwar on March 11, 2021 . (Photo by Ritesh Shukla/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Srila Prabhupada:…”One cleanses himself daily by taking a bath in water, but one who takes his bath only once in the sacred Ganges water of the Bhagavad-gita cleanses away all the dirt of material life. Because Bhagavad-gita is spoken by the Supreme Personality of Godhead, one need not read any other Vedic literature. One need only attentively and regularly hear and read Bhagavad-gita.
In the present age, mankind is so absorbed with mundane activities that it is not possible to read all of the Vedic literatures. But this is not necessary. This one book, Bhagavad-gita, will suffice because it is the essence of all Vedic literatures and because it is spoken by the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
It is said that one who drinks the water of the Ganges certainly gets salvation, but what to speak of one who drinks the waters of Bhagavad-gita? Gita is the very nectar of the Mahabharata spoken by Visnu Himself, for Lord Krsna is the original Visnu. It is nectar emanating from the mouth of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and the Ganges is said to be emanating from the lotus feet of the Lord. Of course there is no difference between the mouth and the feet of the Supreme Lord, but in our position we can appreciate that the Bhagavad-gita is even more important than the Ganges.
The Bhagavad-gita is just like a cow, and Lord Krsna, who is a cowherd boy, is milking this cow. The milk is the essence of the Vedas, and Arjuna is just like a calf. The wise men, the great sages and pure devotees, are to drink the nectarean milk of Bhagavad-gita.
In this present day, man is very eager to have one scripture, one God, one religion, and one occupation. So let there be one common scripture for the whole world–Bhagavad-gita. And let there be one God only for the whole world–Sri Krsna. And one mantra only–Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. And let there be one work only–the service of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.”
Bhagavad-gītā Introduction
—
New York, February 19-20, 1966 660219-20BG.NY
Introduction to Gītopaniṣad
(Earliest Recording of Śrīla Prabhupāda in the Bhaktivedanta Archives)
The Hare Krishna Movement 